Corporate Plan 2020–2021

NMC

Published on 29 April 2020

We begin the year in unprecedented times as we respond to the global threat presented by the novel coronavirus (Covid-19). The UK is in an emergency situation, with the threat of loss of life and serious illness arising from the pandemic.

Our immediate priority is to support the response to the pandemic by helping to create capacity across health and social care within all four countries of the UK. Emergency legislation has enabled us to establish the Covid-19 temporary register, and at the time of writing, nearly 10,000 former nurses and midwives and overseas registrants have opted to join and are ready to support the national effort.

The severity of the pandemic means we have prioritised the Covid-19 response above all other priorities set out within this annual corporate plan. During the emergency we are focused on ensuring we continue to regulate effectively for the benefit of the public and the professionals on our register.

The coronavirus pandemic was not originally considered as we developed the priorities set out within this plan. As a result we will not be able to do everything we have laid out in the timeframes we anticipated. How we do things, particularly engaging with our colleagues and partners, has also needed to change in the short term, especially in the light of the lockdown restrictions on movement and social distancing. We have already made decisions to pause or slow specific initiatives as a consequence.

When the immediate pressures have eased we will need to do a more in-depth stock take of our work and agree new phasing, which we will keep under constant review as the situation evolves. We expect to do this by end of quarter two, with an updated plan shared in autumn. In the meantime we will

continue to monitor our progress through performance measures, progress reports, and budget and risk monitoring.

I am grateful to my colleagues across the NMC, not only for the fantastic work they have already done in response to Covid-19, but also for the work they will do in the months ahead to implement this plan and start bringing our new five-year strategy to life, for the benefit of everyone’s health and wellbeing.

I would also like to thank our partners across health and social care, first for helping to shape the strategy that guides this plan, and secondly for working with us so closely as we all play our part in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic.

And finally, thank you to all the professionals on our permanent and Covid-19 temporary registers who are delivering nursing and midwifery that’s safe, kind and effective in these most challenging of circumstances.

Andrea Sutcliffe

Message from the Chief Executive and Registrar

1 2NMC CORPORATE PLAN 2020–2021

2020–21 marks the first year of our brand new strategy for 2020–2025. This annual plan is designed to be read alongside our five-year strategy, which you can read in full at [insert link].

Figure 1 provides an overview of our vision, purpose, role, strategic themes and values for the next five years.

As we enter year one of our new strategic period, we begin our strategic journey from strong foundations. Our plans are built on successes such as our new standards of proficiency, career led learning through revalidation, changes to our registrations and fitness to practise processes, and a knowledge base gained through engagement with registrants and key stakeholders to help us shape the future.

Our focus for the year ahead is:

Finishing what we’ve startedWe will continue to deliver major programmes of work we’ve already begun. This includes taking a person-centred approach to fitness to practise, delivering fundamental technological improvements to replace legacy systems for our register, continuing to improve processes for registering overseas applicants, and establishing standards for post-registration.

Producing plans about how we will deliver new areas of work which will support how we regulate in the futureWe will use the first year of our new strategy to put in place the building blocks for future success. We will devise new approaches for engaging stakeholders including prospective registrants, develop our model for how we will engage at local, regional and national levels, and define the capabilities which we’ll need to make better use of data and insights. We will also produce a long term plan for how we will update our standards in the future.

Deliver our first strategic prioritiesWorking with the government, we will use regulatory reform to modernise the legislative framework for professional regulation in health and social care. This will shape our processes for regulation in the future.

Learning from successful experiences of sustained engagement and co-production, we will develop principles for how we will use this knowledge to design and deliver professional regulation which enable stakeholders to hold us to account.

Ensure that the NMC is fit for the future and ready for successWe will align our infrastructure, capabilities and culture to our new strategic aims by delivering a new organisational structure, embedding our new values and behaviours which will drive an improved culture with NMC colleagues, deliver new technologies and draw up plans for modernising our offices.

Regulate

Influence

Support

Purpose

Fair Kind Collaborative AmbitiousValues

Promote and uphold high professional standards in nursingand midwifery - protecting the public, inspiring public confidence.

Vision Safe, e�ective and kind nursing and midwifery, improving everyone’s health and wellbeing.

- An accurate and transparent register- Robust professional and educational standards - Assuring education programmes- Responding fairly to fitness to practise

(FtP) concerns

Themes2020–25

- Promote positive and inclusive professional working environments- Share data and insight to identify risks of harm and address workforce challenges

- Encourage regulatory innovation

- Promote understanding - our professions and our role

- Provide practical tools - help embed standards

- Emotional/practical support - people involved in our processes

Improvement and innovation | Proactive support | Visible and better informed | Engaging and empowering | Insight and influence

Our role2020–25

4

Message from

the Chief Executive and R

egistrar

3 NMC CORPORATE PLAN 2020–2021

Our priorities for 2020–2021Each priority is presented under our strategic themes for 2020–2025

Improvement and innovationTo improve and innovate across all our regulatory functions, providing better customer service, and maximising the public benefit from what we do.

1. We will continue to provide effective regulation of nurses and midwives across the UK and nursing associates in England. y maintaining an accurate and transparent register of midwives, nurses and nursing associates and establishing and maintaining a temporary Covid-19 register

y setting robust standards of conduct, behaviour and proficiency and helping to maintain standards through revalidation

y quality assuring nursing and midwifery education

y responding fairly to concerns about midwives, nurses and nursing associates.

Our focus for 2020–2021 will be to monitor our effectiveness through corporate KPIs which are published quarterly on our website. We will review our KPIs and metrics to ensure they are aligned to our new strategy.

2. We will continue to implement our new strategic approach to fitness to practice (FtP) to improve our approach to FtP investigations and to improve the experience and support for those involved, whether professionals or the public.Our focus for 2020–21 will be:

y concluding and evaluating the pilot of our new approach to taking account of the context in which incidents occur, while retaining a focus on individual professional accountability

y improving the support for witnesses who are vulnerable and members of the public involved in our proceedings

y providing better signposting and support for nursing and midwifery professionals to engage in our proceedings

y embedding our new approaches to:

– improved guidance and support for employers on how to make referrals to the NMC

– enabling nursing and midwifery professionals to put things right as part of our proceedings

– making best use of hearings by focussing on resolving issues of material dispute.

3. We will deliver the next stage of improvements for registration of overseas applicants. Our focus for 2020–2021 will be continuing to improve the support we provide to our overseas applicants and those supporting them, developing our test of competence model in line with our new standards of proficiency.

55 6NMC CORPORATE PLAN 2020–2021

Empowering and engagingActively engaging with and empowering the public, our professions and partners. An NMC that is trusted and responsive, actively building an understanding of what we and our professionals do for people.

7. We will formulate and agree an organisation wide approach that ensures people are at the heart of what we do, and principles for co-production of our services and educational standards.Our focus for 2020–2021 will be:

y establish and adopt principles for co-production across all our work

y agree and implement a person-centred approach in all our regulatory activity.

8. We will develop a more systematic and targeted approach to stakeholder engagement across the four countries of the UK.Our focus for 2020–2021 will be:

y undertaking a review of stakeholder relations across the organisation to inform a relationship framework for managing stakeholder engagement through to 2025

y delivering a programme of targeted stakeholder engagement across all four countries, including UK Government and devolved assemblies.

Greater insight and influenceLearning from data and research to improve what we do and working collaboratively to share insights responsibly to help improve the wider health and care system.

9. We will work with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and others on a substantial programme of reform to shape improvements to our legislative framework across the UK. Although there is still uncertainty regarding the timing and focus of this work, reform will include:

y shaping the scope of the policy to be reformed in collaboration with other regulators and the Professional Standards Authority

y working with DHSC to support the development of the legislation

y engaging with key stakeholders to listen to feedback

y supporting the legislative process

y planning the implementation of the legislation into internal policies, systems and processes.

Proactive support for professionalsEnabling our professions to uphold our standards today and tomorrow, anticipating and shaping future nursing and midwifery practice.

4. We will deliver a new set of ambitious post registration standards of proficiency which focus on community practice (health visiting, occupational health nursing, school nursing and specialist practitioner qualification: community nursing).Our focus during 2020–2021 will be:

y co-producing a set of four new standards

y consulting on and user testing of these standards.

New standards are expected to be published in autumn 2021.

5. We will explore a new method for ensuring that we take a dynamic approach to developing professional standards, in order to respond rapidly to new professional challenges.Our focus during 2021–2021 will be:

y agreeing our approach for the provision of additional supportive tools to professional practice

y developing a forward programme for updating of our standards.

More visible and better informedIn closer contact with our professions, their employers and their educators so we can regulate with a deeper understanding of the learning and care environment in each country of the UK.

6. We will review and develop our presence in local areas across the English regions and in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, maintaining a focus on providers and further extending our place-based networks. Our focus for 2020–2021 will be:

y co-producing a review of our current employer link service model

y agreeing a new model and producing an implementation plan for local engagement.

Our priorities for 2020–2021

7 8NMC CORPORATE PLAN 2020–2021 NMC CORPORATE PLAN 2020–2021

10. We will start to improve the way we use and publish data and insight to add value for our stakeholders and help shape the sector.Our focus for 2020–2021 will be:

y concluding and publishing our analysis of equality, diversity, and inclusion data and agreeing plans for addressing the findings

y working with our partners across the UK to support future workforce planning in health and social care

y planning improvements to the information we publish about the state of nursing and midwifery education and practice in the UK

y reviewing our internal intelligence, data, and analytic capabilities.

Fit for the future organisationOur strategic aims have significant implications for how we operate as an organisation. We will align our culture, capabilities and infrastructure, to our new strategic aims.

11. We will make sure that we have the right capabilities, processes and resources to fulfil our ambitions for the strategic period ahead.Our focus for 2020–2021 will be:

y delivering a new organisational design with a new directorate structure that brings together common activities and capabilities

y embedding our new values and behaviours through an extensive internal engagement programme and integration within our people management processes (including recruitment and appraisals)

y delivering the next phase of our people plan to ensure that the NMC is a great place to work, including: our review of reward; developing plans for progression; an updated learning and development programme; and aligning our equality, diversity and inclusion strategy with the NHS workforce race equality standard

y delivering our new technological solution to move our register from legacy systems onto Microsoft Dynamics 365

y delivering the foundational work for migrating our fitness to practise case management system onto the new platform

y improving the user experience of our digital technologies and ensuring that our infrastructure is ready to embrace future opportunities we are developing. We will review and develop plans to update our core ICT infrastructure and continue to put in place data and analytical solutions which support new ways of working

y developing plans to ensure that we have a modern and dynamic work space starting from 2021 with a focus on 23 Portland Place and Edinburgh.

Our priorities for 2020–2021

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Nursing and Midwifery Council 23 Portland Place, London W1B 1PZ

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